it's all up to you, some people study faster/slower, ...
Agree with the second phrase, disagree with the first. (FWIW, I'm assuming DO is same as allo, but have no first hand knowledge). It is NOT up to you. It is up to your abilities. As others have said in this thread, there will always be some people able to get through one pass of the material and know it cold, and as a result they have plenty of free time. But this doesn't hold true for the rest of med students, who are going to find their time to be a premium and that it's a totally different world than college. The vast vast majority are going to have to do multiple repeats of the material before each exam. And the volume is large. So we are talking a LOT of material and multiple passes through it. For most people, the class time plus study time during the first two years of med school ends of equivalent to a very long houred, full time job. Basically the equivalent to if you went off to work at a big law firm or wall street firm. Meaning you get up early, go to class. Then work hard after class. If you use your time well, on non-exam weeks, you end up able to have a few hours for a nice dinner with the family, some work out time, and an hour or two in the non-exam evenings to do family stuff. Maybe a bit of time on the weekend, but certainly not every weekend. And if you aren't getting it, you need to be flexible in how you study, and how much. This has to be a big, high priority, commitment for you and one understood by your family, or it doesn't work. You can't dabble in med school. You may find yourself working at full tilt and not have time for much else at times. There may also be times when things aren't as bad. It's a roller coaster.
And then third year, all bets are off. There will be times during the harder rotations (IM, surgery, OB) when you are staying over at the hospital every 3rd or 4th night. There will be many rotations where the week continues straight through the weekend without any break (most places give you 4 days off a month, which may be divided up amongst weekend days as one working weekend, two split weekends, and one "golden" weekend). You get used to it, but your family needs to be prepared for it. There will also be months (eg Family med, ED, psych, outpatient medicine, maybe peds) when your hours are very normal and manageable. For most, third year is the hardest year of med school, timing wise. The first year when your hours are not your own, and you have to adjust everything else in your life to fit around it, accordingly. A taste of what's to come in internship, when your hours really will not be schedulable, and in many months, will by trying on your non-work relationships.
Fourth year of med school is much easier -- you will generally have to do a month or two of Sub-internship where you function like an intern, which are hard, and maybe will take a few heavy electives and audition rotations that will help you decide on your future path, but other than that, you take a lot of easy, fun electives, and focus your main efforts on lining up that post- med school residency. Which involves a lot of traveling and interviewing and has a lot of stress of its own.
I'd say the first two and fourth year of med school will not be any more difficult on having a family than any professional job would. But third year will be more difficult, and internship even more still. As njbmd suggests, your family needs to be on board with what you are trying to accomplish, because having everybody pulling in different directions is a recipe for disaster.
Can someone please give me a clue how many hours may be necessary?
